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Essers: Enterprising identities: Female entrepreneurs of Morrocan or Turkish Origin in theNetherlands
Strategies to negotiate identity for female moroccan/turkish entrepreneurs: adhere to conventional images of
femineity, denounce femineity and/or ethnicity situationally, resist the masculine connotation of
entrepreneurship by disconnecting it from masculinity.
This research furthers the understanding of the micropolitics of identify construction in the workplace in
relation to the social categories of gender, ethnicity, and entrepreneurship.
Need for study female ethnic minority entrepreneurs because its largely increasing instead of white man
Doing gender and doing business are intertwined
How do FEMTOs construct their identities beyond the dichotomies and stereotypes such as western-oriental,
local-foreign and modern-traditional that are so often used to pin them down?
White Dutch people are represented as a homogenous group in opposition to others: non-whites and Muslims.
Migrants have become the ethnic and religious others. Turkish and Moroccan women are seen as captured in
their cultures without any rights.
Constructionist approach: Identities are multiple and produced in dialogue with other. Ideas of identity being
fluid, situational and dynamic.
Do gender: room for agency and various ways of relating to the structural restraints of gender socialization and
patriarchy. Families and communities play a key role in gender socialization.
Patriarchy: system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women.
These systems shape labour market positions and influence family relations so that traditional gender roles and
the subordination of women to men are reproduced.
Ethnicity can be theorized as a differentiator of meanings of femineity. Women who do not conform to specific
gender roles may find themselves in position of shame, which is often related to the conception of honour.
Women add or subtract from men's honour and can only contribute to the lineage of honour by diminishing
shame by preserving chastity, purity and modesty. Entrepreneurship is seen as honourable, which contributes
to its masculine connotation.
The extent to which Muslim women develop alternative ideas of femineity highly depends on their ethnic
identification
Women who construct their entrepreneurial identities often go through a processes of masculinization.
Gender and entrepreneurship are enacted as situated practices: performing entrepreneurship involves a
gender positioning which itself influences how entrepreneurship is being performed.
Minorities start businesses because they face discrimination in the labour market and because they hold
specific values and have access to certain resources. This representation contrasts with the archetypical
entrepreneur and therefore contributes to their stereotyping and othering. At the same time, individualism and
achievement as entrepreneurial assets are overemphasized and typically based on US research. This
ethnocentric discourse urges ethnic minority entrepreneurs to go through processes of assimilation or
westernization in order to succeed.
What happens to professional identities when gender, ethnicity and entrepreneurship come together?
Salima is 32 Moroccan wedding planner: she rejects her identification as future housewife and thus resists the
stereotypical images of Moroccan women.
Melekka is 23 Moroccan and sells moroccan clothes: because of her veil, people think she is not educated
Dutch perceive it as a symbol of female dependency. Her identity of entrepreneur is doubted by many people
and she receives more negative reactions than Salima who does not express her female ethnicity that way. She
avoids shame by wearing the veil, as it gives her the opportunity to interact with male clients in a distant but
decent way. She combines 2 cultural frameworks.
, Durrin is 33 Turkish businesswomen that imports clothes from Turkey: she stays closest to the connection
between masculinity and honour when she says that she behaves and negotiates like a man.
Gulin is 30 Turkish hairdresser: Both salima and Gulin are not accepted by their ethnic communities as self
reliant and capable persons because they are female. Turkish women are not seen as successful entrepreneurs.
She identifies herself as a westernized entrepreneur under the influence of the ethnocentric discourse on
entrepreneurship. Dutch men and women are simply clients to her, and she does not think they can damage
her. This is different with Turkish clients, because then different images of femineity occur.
Atalya is 29 Turkish and owns a beauty center: she identifies with other Turkish women who are discriminated
against. She turns her own negative experience into something positive for other women, who may not dare to
go to a normal salon.
Women entrepreneurs may reject the existing meanings of womanhood, and consider themselves a sort of
honorary male. This can be criticized because it maintains the link between honor and masculinity. However
the construction of honor is complex and meanings vary over places, times, and contexts. Honor is not reserved
for men.
Melekka and Salima can be labelled as transnational entrepreneurs: they are able to import products and
engage in business with their home country because of their multicultural competence and linguistic
knowledge.
Being a FEMTO can also be advantageous. They can use their hybridized cultural identities and their insider
knowledge of migrant communities to serve clients with specific identities and demands. They sell images of
female ethnicity. Further, they enhance legitimacy for these women, as a predominantly female clientele
makes it easier to retain honour than dealing with male clients would do.
In the salon of Atalya, the multi-ethnic researcher FEMTO dynamic could be at work: she does not want to
exclude Dutch clients because she does not want to exclude the Dutch researcher while simultaneously
mentioning unpleasant experiences with xenophobic Dutch women. These experiences have discouraged her
to seek for Dutch clients.
Although it may seem that the two cultural contexts work to their disadvantage and restrict them, it is more
complex than that because FEMTOs identify with both cultures. They value the hybrid identities they develop
as migrant businesswomen because that allows them to combine the best parts of both cultures.
When gender, ethnicity and entrepreneurship intersect, contradictions emerge. Gender and ethnic identities
can go together but not with entrepreneurship, because migrant women have great difficulties in honorably
manifesting themselves publicly as entrepreneurs. Masculinization may solve this dilemma, but only
temporarily and situationally. Juggling of gender identities and westernization is a way to solve tensions
between gender, ethnicity and entrepreneurship. Yet, women who westernize meet resistance from the
migrant community which no longer perceives them as appropriate women. Furthermore, westernization does
not diminish the masculine connotation of entrepreneurship as such. While masculinization and westernization
may give FEMTOs space as entrepreneurs, these processes leave the gendered and ethnocentric discourses on
entrepreneurship intact.
Three different types of identity work emerge that differ in the degree of conformity
1. Staying within the gendered limits prescribed by ethnic communities: helps to avoid shameful position, but
cannot be used in business negotiation with men.
2. Cross the lines for Turks, Moroccans, and females to identify with entrepreneurship: denounce their feminity
and ethnicity to construct an entrepreneurial identity.
3. Development of hybrid ethnic identities and a reshaping of gender identities that leads to a breadk with the
ethnocentrically and gendered entrepreneurship discourse
From FEMTOs narratives we derive that they reinforce the heroic qualities of the entrepreneur, while
disconnecting this heroism from masculinity and whiteness.
Since negotiation presupposes power, entrepreneurship may be regarded as an empowerment tool.
Entrepreneurship contributes to the change in power relations between men and women in migrant
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